There are worse things for unborn babies than Chrissie Swan smoking

Miranda Devine

–,
Sunday,
February,
10,
2013,(7:18am)

CHRISSIE Swan is one of the new crop of instant B-grade celebrities whose fame has come through just being themselves on reality TV.

In her case she was a runner up on Big Brother.

As a rare “plus size” celebrity, the 39-year-old won a loyal following which catapulted her into a job hosting her own morning TV talk show, the Circle, now defunct, as well as a gig as a Jenny Craig spokesmodel.

But now she is in the news for all the wrong reasons - photographed by paparazzi smoking a cigarette in her car during her third pregnancy.

In a tearful confession on Melbourne radio last week Swan said: ‘I have struggled terribly with totally giving up cigarettes since I found out I was pregnant”.

Outrage and condemnation ensued, with twitter abuse so virulent Swan shut down her account.

Swan’s parenting skills again were called into question, less than a year after she was criticized for having a child who is overweight, a fact she volunteered after posing with him for a photograph in the Australian Women’s Weekly.

Obviously, it would be better for her unborn child if it wasn’t getting nicotine and carbon monoxide mixed in with its oxygen. Clearly, pregnant women shouldn’t smoke, and community disapproval has a role in limiting the practice.

But for those few who persist in risking the odd “sneaky cigarette” it’s a matter for their own conscience.

And the fact is that in previous eras, women puffed away like chimneys throughout pregnancy with no obvious ill effects on the ensuing generation.

There is a famously evocative photograph of Jacqueline Kennedy in 1960, eight months pregnant and smoking while reading a book on the back of a yacht. Her baby grew up to be the strapping John Jnr, as perfect a specimen of manhood as ever existed.

Frankly, there are worse things for unborn children. Like abortion. But not so many people complain about that.

Have Your Say

True story (not hollywood true story). My wife was conceived in 1950 by a then chain smoking(camels) returned WWII soldier, both her and her brother cannot give up smoking, they have tried every known device. Now I contend that parents smoking habit before conception to be much more dangerous than smoking during.

people can give up smoking. it is a matter of discipline. some people can give up heroine why not nicotine. any pregnant woman smoking should be jailed until the pregnancy is over. then the baby should be taken from her unless she sign an agreement not to smoke while pregnant or in the company of children. caught smoking again while pregnant would see the baby taken away for good. sterilization should be considered for repeat offenders

Jane replied to NevilleW
Sun 10 Feb 13 (01:44pm)

I was conceived in the 60’s by two chain smoking, heavy drinking (by todays standards) parents. I have never smoked in my entire life, find it the most disgusting habit, can not even eat if I see an ashtray. But also am more tolerent of smokers than reformed smokers, after all it is still legal. I have also only drank half of my life and that wasn’t until in my 20’s with many periods were I completely abstained from any alcohol, so I find blaming the parents a bit over the top for a smoking or alcohol addiction. My Mother and I thought the way Ms Swan was persecuted in the press ridiculous and both my parents gave up smoking 20 years ago and are “reformed smokers” with less tolerance than me.

Paul Horn replied to NevilleW
Sun 10 Feb 13 (03:58pm)

Strange this anti smoking hysteria that borders on pure paranoia! I can’t understand this madness when contrasted against the push to legalise drugs. Could someone please explain that to me!!

Having lived with both chain smokers and drug addicted scum I sure know which addiction would be my preference. But then to idiotic leftist fools logic and decency were never goals worthy of aspiration.

Barry replied to NevilleW
Mon 11 Feb 13 (07:23am)

It is my understading that Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances on earth. Further God forbid, but, I also understand that cigarette manufactures don’t put anything in the cigarettes to make them less addicative, nor do they take anything of that nature out. Having succesfully stopped smoking 8 years ago after several failed attempts my heart goes out to anyone trying to beat this addiction

Hawk replied to NevilleW
Mon 11 Feb 13 (11:53am)

Robert you’re only trolling trying to get a bite eh?

So she smoked,what’s the big deal,the way everyone has carried on is disgarceful,even Chrissie put on a silly show,she had nothing to feel shameful about,she has only played into the hands of the Roberts of this world and every other hand wringer who like to point fingers.

S. Spade replied to NevilleW
Mon 11 Feb 13 (11:53pm)

This was in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Letters on 8 February:

“Life is full of ironies. A young woman admits to smoking during pregnancy and it provokes outrage and a national debate. If the same young woman had admitted to having an abortion we would have shrugged our shoulders and said she was within her rights to do what she wants to with her own body. Go figure.

Neil Ormerod Professor of Theology, Australian Catholic University”

Mike replied to NevilleW
Tue 12 Feb 13 (04:01am)

OMG, that is a very big call Robert! It is very clear to me that you have little or no experience with addiction. You suggest that ‘some’ people just give up heroine! That is clearly not correct, and in actual fact very few kick heroine addiction. Those very few that do succeed have the unenviable task of rebuilding their lives, and usually from scratch, which is often a good reason to succumb to the addiction again. If I remember correctly, the chances of doing just that is somewhat less than 1%.

I guess we are all entitled to our opinions, however suggesting that a pregnant woman be jailed until the pregnancy is over, let alone sterilization, is cause for great concern. Are you suggesting that you are without any addiction Robert, and you are therefore entitled to throw the first stone?

Your comments Robert clearly indicate that your addiction is totalitarianism, and that my fellow blogger, places you with some very special company. Your addiction Robert is the most dangerous addiction of all, and I would imagine that many would agree that you should be placed under full time surveilance!

John of Vic replied to NevilleW
Tue 12 Feb 13 (09:11am)

My parents smoked. Seven kids, all healthy, all well educated. Of the seven, only one smokes and he’s healthy too. In fact, I know lots of people, men and women, who smoked when having and raising kids and all their kids are healthy.

I think we’ve been conned.

Harry replied to NevilleW
Tue 12 Feb 13 (12:31pm)

The only positive aspect of this controversy is that people are all of a sudden recognising that the unborn baby (sometimes called a foetus) is a living being.
What is still missing is the small issue of its right to not be killed to suit somebody’s lifestyle.
Why do women have full rights to everyting within their bodies when it comes to infanticide (sometimes called abortion), but all hell breaks loose if they smoke? I know from personal experience of a large family, that smoking before and during pregnancy does not negatively affect all babies (none out of nine in our case). However it is obvious that killing of the unborn child is certainly a negative to its future life on Earth.

robert replied to NevilleW
Tue 12 Feb 13 (10:06pm)

mike, many people give up heroine. i have friends who were former junkies. and my point is that to give up heroine is much harder than giving up nicotine. and yet people do it. if you wish to smoke, smoke. but a pregnancy is usually planned. if you smoke you have no right to have a child, unless you are willing to give smoking up. if a mother thinks more of her selfish addiction than her unborn child , she is not fit to be a mother in my opinion. how many still births are there to pregnant women who smoke? far more than non smoking mothers. in some cases these women have actually killed their babies or subjected them to major health issues later in life. that should be a crime. and a crime deserves punishment. i am thinking of the unborn child you are not. i would give the mother a choice. nicotine or children?

Nemesis replied to NevilleW
Wed 13 Feb 13 (11:41am)

robert.....what a great concentration camp guard you will make!

Mike replied to NevilleW
Thu 14 Feb 13 (02:39pm)

Robert, if you truely knew as much about addiction as you suggest, you would not have uttered such untruths. You talk about ‘junkies’ that you know who got off! Got off what Robert? Mate I know more about heroin than you’ll ever hope to know, and a dead daughter to prove it.

Refrain from using the word ‘junkies’ Robert. You may consider my daughter to have been one of your ‘junkies’, but to me, and to my wife, and my son she was our addicted daughter and sister, one that was loved very much, and who, like most heroin addicts, couldn’t find a way to get off.

Celebrities are annoying.
However, smoking during pregnancy will result in a low-weight baby? Not convinced, at all. Have seen the proof that this isn’t true.

Google ‘smoking and baby weight’ and it only yields 66 million results. On average, a pack-a-day habit during pregnancy will shave about a half-pound from a baby’s birth weight.
The world is spherical too, apparently.

robert replied to thistle
Wed 13 Feb 13 (08:54pm)

nemesis, concentration camp guards are not concerned about unborn children. i am not advocating people be gassed or tortured. just that they do the moral thing. and poisoning a child is not the moral thing. they have a choice people in concentration camps do not.

Nemesis replied to thistle
Fri 15 Feb 13 (01:54pm)

robert....what I should have stated, is that your intolerance for opinions and views other than your own has similarities to what made devoted concentration camp guards in Himmler’s SS.

So now, and hopefully, maybe you will step back from your blinkered and narrow view of how the world should be according to you, and accept how the world really is?

robert replied to thistle
Fri 15 Feb 13 (05:36pm)

mike, i use the term ‘’junkie’’ as a group description not a personal attack on anyone. my friend took heroine. and when he was on it he was a terrible piece of work. a liar, could be violent, betrayed his friends without thought. however once off it he returned to be the good bloke he always was. i know there are tragic reasons why people take heroine. and i can sympathise. however it takes a special kind of courage to get off it. and i admire that. i am also not underestimating how hard it is to get off the stuff. infinitely harder that nicotine. and yet people do it. a mother who smokes cares more about her addiction than her unborn child. and to me that is a bad mother. and someone who does not deserve to have children. sorry about your daughter.

Peter B replied to thistle
Sat 16 Feb 13 (10:58am)

Llittle robert the racist, gullible fool, coward and just plain idiot would make a good concentration camp guard . robert’s progressive hero George Soros helped his comrade Hitler strip the Jews of their belongings on the way to the death camps. Your hero Hitler would be very proud of your racism little robert especially against Jews and Stalin would be proud of how much of a Useful idiot you are for helping the spread the lies and propaganda. Please keep your lunatic comments coming robert you are such a good example of why the loony Left is known as the loony Left.

I love Chrissie and I think she can do what she likes, it’s not up to anyone else to judge.

But gosh darn it, Devine, your ignoramus is slaying me.

Jackie O’s first baby was tragically stillborn.
Her second was John.
Her third died at two days old due to respiratory distress.

Your use of this example And omittance of these additional facts is at best, censorship and at worst, opportunistic. But then we see your entire article is not in fact in support of Swan but instead an instrument for you to voice your stance on abortion. How very 50s all of this is!

@michael. Actually in NSW its called grievous bodily harm, at present the unborn child has no legal rights until it can survive unaided outside the mothers womb.

While i am no fan of smoking and believe that children should be afforded the best start in life their parents can offer, i find it slightly odd that the adult female is (when pregnant) considered nothing more than an incubator for the next generation AND must accept that her carreer and future prospects are effectively finished because J Bishop says “You can’t have it all”.

Now Fred Nile wants to legislate so that legal rights for the unborn commence at moment of conception, creating such a legal minefield that i reckon a savvy gold digger will have a division of assets settlement drawn up before breakfast the next morning! Whats more the hapless mug could lose half of every thing before paternity is established.

Nemesis replied to Piratepete
Wed 13 Feb 13 (11:49am)

Noddy.....you conflate what Julie Bishop stated with restricted female abilitiy because, the women and hopefully her husband, have chosen to have a family.

It’s called a choice in life Noddy, so stop trying to equate what Bishop has stated as having some political relevance to what a woman chooses to do or not to do with her life.

Noddy replied to Piratepete
Thu 14 Feb 13 (06:28pm)

While I appreciate your position on choice and agree that in a “traditional” family unit at least one parent will ordinarily spend more time at home with the offspring. What you failed to grasp is J Bishops position on working mothers. “YOU CANNOT HAVE IT ALL”.

The point is that work life balance is important and while senior members of the opposition set the tone it is the under appreciated working mothers who are at both ends being made to feel failures for having to work and inept for aspiring beyond the “glass ceiling”.

Misogyny much?

Nemesis replied to Piratepete
Fri 15 Feb 13 (02:19pm)

Noddy.....when my wife and I were starting a family my wife gave up work to raise our children.

And that is what Julie Bishop meant. Women cannot have it all.

As parents we both made a choice to put off those things that we wanted to a future date and after we had raised our family because we both realized the importance of a parent/child relationship.

Raising a balanced family is a FULL TIME job which requires at least one parent around, and preferably the mother, especially in a child’s formative years, on a 24/7 basis.

Dumping the kids at pre-school while the mother shuffles off to work deprives the mother and the child of the most fundamental learning and bonding period between the parent and the child.

It’s only now being realized that many children deprived of a solid parent/child relationship, because they have been dumped into the care of strangers, are developing some troubling side effects which will probably take decades before the realization takes hold within society.

No woman can be a part time parent and do mothering as successfully as a full time mother. Women cannot have it all.

Obviously of the wrong tribe. If she spoke of stupid red-green propaganda she’d be right.

One must remember, you have to be more capable than a PM raise kids these days.

You only have to read News.com, the articles, the comments to see how pervasive righteous authoritarianism is. I’m right so do as I say. In truth, these people quite incapable and devoid of achievement. Green with jealousy. Zip adaptability.

Perhaps it was the Cold War, WW2, experiences closely tied to the fall to communism, but the 60’s and 70’s had a universal theme, live and let live. The elites were actually better educated. They actually landed man on the moon. They aspired and achieved.

Today there is just so much phoney crap. Ignoramuses who think they have correct everyone, living off the public teat.

Never have there been so many incapable people demanding to lead others with Gillard at the helm, the most ignorant and incapable of all devoid of any worthy track record.

As kids we cut up sheets of asbestos, chewed on lead pencils, painted with lead paints, breathed in lead petrol ... And we’re still here while these maladjusted totalitarians claim all sorts of rubbish.

Facts, these people don’t do facts. People? The perpetual Orwellian fat pigs more like it.

Have a Bex mate.. I’m sure you still have a stash in the cupboard somewhere.

robert replied to PaulC
Sun 10 Feb 13 (01:38pm)

paul c. a lot of you are’’not’’ here. or in bad health. all that poison in your system has gone to your head. the ‘’fact ‘is you talk nonsense

Leo G replied to PaulC
Sun 10 Feb 13 (05:44pm)

PaulC, Pencils have never contained metallic lead. Graphitic carbon was known as plumbago when it was mined in Europe in the 14th century- hence the misnomer. The graphite “lead pencil” was first made in England in the 16th century.

mot123 replied to PaulC
Wed 13 Feb 13 (06:18am)

i will stick up for you paul....you may not know it...but glitter and robert....always produce negative comment and they always talk rubbish....

When adults are open to criticism on such a level, what chance do their children have to develop a balanced attitude as they mature?

I have to agree Miranda. I chain smoked through 4 pregnancies, produced 4 healthy, normal weight babies over whom I proceded to chain smoke whilst I breast fed them. God, the health nazis would have had a ball with me. Mind you, the health hazards of smoking weren’t talked about 40 years ago.
And yes, abortion tends to cause rather more harm to an unborn baby but let’s not discuss that, after all, it’s a woman’s right to do as she wishes with her body.
I would have preferred not to have smoked, but more for my own benefit than my childrens, unfortunately nicotine addiction doesn’t disappear when pregnancy occurs.
As for all those obnoxious tweets, well, I wonder how many of them came from overweight, unfit women who don’t realise that far greater risk to Chrissy’s unborn baby came from her obesity. A high BMI is likely to cause gestational diabetes, which is diabetes occurring during pregnancy and something that carries far greater risks to the foetus, including stillbirth.
I am not a great fan of Chrissy but in this instance she has my sympathy, although I could have done without the self flagellation on TV.

I find it interesting your comment that abortion causes harm to an unborn baby and then comment it’s a woman’s choice for her body. The very words ‘unborn baby’ imply a second body. They imply a human baby.
You say you don’t want up discuss it, but maybe we should. As a society I think we should discuss the torn limbs ripped from the ‘unborn baby’.

Perhaps we should discuss Victoria’s laws that permit abortions to 9 months. Victoria’s laws that forbid medical staff to assist abortion babies that are born alive.

The lack of discussion has meant we are unaware of the bloody procedure and the life that is bring snuffed out.

nik replied to Big Nana
Mon 11 Feb 13 (11:33am)

You make a good point Big Nana. If it is women’s right to abort an unborn child (because it is her say what goes on with her body) then it is her right to expose an unborn child to whatever she wants to inhale or ingest for just the same reason. Her body. Her decision.
I don’t think either is good but what I think only applies to me & does not give me the right to decide or impose my judgement on others.

Nemesis replied to Big Nana
Wed 13 Feb 13 (01:38pm)

I keep hearing the argument from the pro-abortion on demand people that it is a woman’s body to do with it as she pleases. This thinking is used to somehow alleviate the responsibility of individual women who have taken up the option to kill their inconvenient child.

I do not agree with that largely Leftist sentiment as it abrogates the murder of unwanted children onto the state which has been ever so supportive of that particular womens right, but is the first entitiy to step in whenever children are noted to be at risk within a family and alleviates the parents of responsibility for the upbringing of their child/children, by removing them from their care.

So you have state supported murder of inconvenient children on one hand and on the other you have the same state protecting those ‘at risk’ children from bad parenting.

We now live in a very topsy turvy society where hypocrisy and irresponsibility seem to be the law of the land. I believe it is past time that we stopped what we are doing to ourselves as a civilzation and had another reformation.

robert replied to Big Nana
Sun 17 Feb 13 (12:26pm)

big nana, i f you had not smoked your babies would have been healthier and possibly more intelligent. they may also suffer from health problems in later life because of you poisoning them. admittedly when you were a mother society generally was very ignorant about the effects of smoking on unborn children. you have an excuse. modern mothers do not

Never let facts interfere with a good story, Miranda. What a shameful analogy comparing Jackie O smoking and the birth of one of her two children that made it to adulthood out of three births that did not. Two dying before birth and one a few days later suffering from hyaline membrane disease, a lung ailment common in premature babies with significant correlation to mothers smoking during pregnancy.
Also the photo you are attaching your analogy to is actually taken in 1963 three days before Patrick was born, dying a few days later.
Its always best to get the facts right first before submitting it as justification to your point of view.

Lynda, You also should check your facts.
Many relevant studies show that infants of smoking mothers had a reduced (not an increased) incidence of RDS for their gestation compared with infants of nonsmokers. Moreover, cigarette smoking during pregnancy is associated with a decrease in the risk of RDS in very preterm babies.
But yes, the picture of Jacqueline Kennedy was apparently from 16mm colour film taken on a Saturday in July or early August 1963.

All this proves is that I’m in the wrong business:

$50,000 for a B grade celebrities photographs of smoking while pregnant?

I’ll get a good camera tomorrow and start stalking female pregnant celebrities who smoke.

Correct, there are worse things. The child could be born into a family full of moralising Miranda… sorry Helen Lovejoys that base their world view on a bunch of fairy tales in the sky… sorry, Catholics.

at least if they were born alive rather than ripped apart in the womb they could choose to accept or reject the views of their family.

Remember Warnie, sneaking in fags after copping a wad of money for giving up?
Nicotine, although a problem, isn’t the worst.
Imagine a mum to be crackhead, smoking a crackpipe while the crackhead donar dad watches on.

Remember Warnie, sneaking in fags after copping a wad of money for giving up?
Nicotine, although a problem, isn’t the worst.
Imagine a mum to be crackhead, smoking a crackpipe while the crackhead donar dad watches on.

The link between lung cancer and cigarette smoke. This may well be on the basis that, when 90% of the adult population smoked, 90% of lung cancer sufferers were smokers. Nowadays, only about 40% of the adult population smoke; obviously, it should still be that 90% of lung cancer sufferers must be smokers; but, wait – only 40% of lung cancer sufferers are smokers! While I cannot say that smoking anything will result in no harm, I fail to see why a fall in smoking and a rise in lung cancer rates does not raise questions about the veracity of the original claim.

In the 50ties doctors recomended smoking, many healthy babies were born to smokers, and did not smoke later in life, but then there are drugs, and alcahol, babies being born addicted to heroin and other drugs, then of course there was Tholydimide given for nausea which produced limbless babies, also reconmended by doctors, so smoking is just one small reason for child death at birth, maybe, then there are abortions which means a 100% death rate.
Drugs are illegal smoking is not, maybe it should be, but there is the holier than thou group out there that object to everything, some are reformed smokers beating their chests but later go back to smoking.
Not smoking is possible but harder for some people than others, and as yet I haven’t heard to many people bitching about smoking grass or canabis, which they say does not harm you, what utter crap.

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